In the Light of Evolution

In his 1973 essay, Theodosius Dobzhansky argues that a meaningful picture can be drawn from “a pile of sundry facts” in biology only by looking at them in “the light of evolution”. In a post-genomics era of large-scale data, technological advances and integrative approaches have the potential to expand the range of this perspective. In this cross journal series, BMC Biology, BMC Evolutionary Biology and Biology Direct bring together a collection of articles exploring how evolutionary principles applied across the spectrum of biology can shed light on a diverse range of topics from molecules to ecosystems, and with a particular emphasis on human genetics, interactions with the environment, and health and disease. Selected research articles will be included in addition to invited reviews and comment.

We will consider Research manuscripts of exceptional interest on the following topics:• Evolution of morphological change • Understanding and treating disease in the light of evolution• Origins of evolutionary complexity• Human evolutionary biology in a post-genomic era• Anthropogenic effects on evolution• Evolutionary insights into genome variation, and vice versa• Host-parasite interactions• Evolutionary lessons from large-scale genomics• Insights from ancient DNA on human origins• Molecular mechanisms of evolution• Applied microbial evolution • Evolutionary ecology• Genomics and the evolution of development

Paraphrasing Dobzhansky’s famous dictum, I discuss how interrogating cancer through the lens of evolution has transformed our understanding of its development, causality and treatment resistance. The emerging ...

Sex determination relies on a hierarchically structured network of genes, and is one of the most plastic processes in evolution. The evolution of sex-determining genes within a network, by neo- or sub-function...

Polyploidization is one of the major evolutionary processes that shape eukaryotic genomes, being particularly common in plants. Polyploids can arise through direct genome doubling within a species (autopolyplo...

Antennae are multi-segmented appendages and main odor-sensing organs in insects. In Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), antennal morphologies have diversified according to their ecological requirements. While...

The five most pervasive anthropogenic threats to biodiversity are over-exploitation, habitat changes, climate change, invasive species, and pollution. Since all of these threats can affect intraspecific biodiv...

The trillions of microbes living in the gut—the gut microbiota—play an important role in human biology and disease. While much has been done to explore its diversity, a full understanding of our microbiomes de...

Over the past decade, there has been a pronounced shift in the study of host–microbe associations, with recognition that many of these associations are beneficial, and often critical, for a diverse array of ho...

Dorsal spine reduction in threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is a classic example of recurrent skeletal evolution in nature. Sticklebacks in marine environments typically have long spines that form ...

The idea that much of our genome is irrelevant to fitness—is not the product of positive natural selection at the organismal level—remains viable. Claims to the contrary, and specifically that the notion of “j...

Population geneticists have long sought to understand the contribution of natural selection to molecular evolution. A variety of approaches have been proposed that use population genetics theory to quantify th...

Microbes are found on us, within us and around us. They inhabit virtually every environment on the planet and the bacteria carried by an average human, mostly in their gut, outnumber human cells. The vast majo...

What made us human? Gene expression changes clearly played a significant part in human evolution, but pinpointing the causal regulatory mutations is hard. Comparative genomics enabled the identification of hum...

In this question and answer article we discuss how evolution shapes morphology (the shape and pattern of our bodies) but also how learning about morphology, and specifically how that morphology arises during d...

For a subset of genes in our genome a change in gene dosage, by duplication or deletion, causes a phenotypic effect. These dosage-sensitive genes may confer an advantage upon copy number change, but more typic...

Genomic evidence has demonstrated that humans and Neanderthals interbred. Today, the genomes of most individuals outside Africa contain 2–3% Neanderthal DNA. However, it is still hotly debated why the Neandert...

Strong DNA conservation among divergent species is an indicator of enduring functionality. With weaker sequence conservation we enter a vast ‘twilight zone’ in which sequence subject to transient or lower cons...

Researchers have long sought to understand the genetic basis of the cognitive differences between primates, with particular focus on the human brain. Although all mutational types have worked in concert with e...

The duplication of genes can occur through various mechanisms and is thought to make a major contribution to the evolutionary diversification of organisms. There is increasing evidence for a large-scale duplic...

Human language is unique among all forms of animal communication. It is unlikely that any other species, including our close genetic cousins the Neanderthals, ever had language, and so-called sign ‘language’ i...

The risk of developing cancer should theoretically increase with both the number of cells and the lifespan of an organism. However, gigantic animals do not get more cancer than humans, suggesting that super-hu...

Model organisms are widely used in research as accessible and convenient systems to study a particular area or question in biology. Traditionally only a handful of organisms have been widely studied, but moder...

Biological systems integrate multiscale processes and networks and are, therefore, viewed as difficult to dissect. However, because of the clear-cut separation between the software code (the information encode...